We have lived too long in the world to attach much importance to an agitation of so exceedingly equivocal a kind. Even Mr Cobden, who has had more experience in the agitating trade than any other man alive, and who has materially profited thereby, admitted the other day at Manchester that it would be no easy matter to maintain a popular ferment. "Leave this question," said he, "in suspense during a whole session of Parliament, and what will be the result? In the first place, we all know from experience that it will not be very easy to keep popular enthusiasm in that high and fervid state to which you can probably bring it in the course of a few weeks. You cannot keep the same enthusiasm alive for a number of months;" and, accordingly, he counselled immediate action. From what we can gather of the opinions of the working classes, we believe that he is right to this extent, that it would be impossible to keep up a prolonged agitation: we question much whether it is in his power to get up an agitation at all. The real objects of the League are as well known to the working classes as the characters of the men who compose it. One of the speakers at a late meeting of the "National Reform Association" in London, expressed the sentiments of the great majority of the operatives when he stated, "that they should not seek for the mere advancement of the manufacturing capitalist. He (the speaker) was a Chartist, but he would not support a mere manufacturing aristocracy, (cheers); he would never consent to turn the woolsack into a cotton bag, (cheers); and he thought there were now arising daily questions deeply affecting the working man, which should be left to some one to decide not quite so deeply interested as his master." Another speaker at the same meeting observed that, "for his own part, he did not see what great good it would do the people if the Financial Reformers were in power. The people would not be in power, but the manufacturing capitalists; and, as to that, he believed many of the aristocracy had more chivalry, love of country, and fine generous feeling about them, than most of your mercantile classes." (Loud cheers.) It is only by separating the question of free importation of corn from that of a revision of our whole commercial system, and by addressing himself exclusively to the former, that Mr Cobden hopes to succeed. The truth is, that he dare not go into the question of a revision of the commercial system. There is nothing which the members of the League dread more than the broaching of that subject; for the fact is, that a large number of our manufacturers depend for their existence upon the continuance of that Protection which has been withdrawn from other kinds of industry. Let every branch of manufacture which is at present protected by a duty, varying from 15 to 10 per cent, be subjected to the operation of Free Trade, or even protected only to the extent of 2½ per cent--as is the case with wheat, if we assume its